We may now pass on to the principal games which are played in Japan. _Sugoroku_ is a game played on a board by two persons. It is similar to backgammon, with the difference that the grand object of _sugoroku_ is to get all one’s men into the enemy’s territory. There are twelve men on each side and twenty-four points to move to, and two dice are thrown alternately as in backgammon. It is a very ancient game which is hardly ever played nowadays; and what is now known as _sugoroku_ was originally called the _dochu sugoroku_ or travelling _sugoroku_. The earliest of its kind is a large sheet on which the views of the fifty-three postal stations on the highway from Yedo to Kyoto are given in order in as many squares. The starting-point is Yedo in one corner of the sheet, from which the squares are ranged along the edges until one of them touches the Yedo square, and then they are continued along the inner edges of the first squares, and still another set is formed along the edges of these second squares, until Kyoto is reached in the centre of the sheet. Each player has a slip of paper with his name or mark inscribed on it; it is put with the others in the Yedo square. He throws a die in turn and moves forward according to the number turned up; and the one who reaches Kyoto first is the winner. As there are fifty-three squares, the minimum number of throws of the die is nine; but the game may become complicated if, as is usually the case, the die must in the last throw turn up the exact number required for reaching the goal. Thus, if five is turned up when only two is needed to reach Kyoto, the player is made to go back three squares from the goal and await his turn for the next throw. Again, when a player comes to a certain square, he may be made to forfeit a turn or go back a number of squares. When these rules are introduced, the game is very much prolonged. Hence, later forms of _sugoroku_ have a smaller number of squares; indeed, if, further, the place to move to is named in every square for every number turned up, a very few squares will suffice; and some _sugoroku_ have no more than a dozen squares and yet an exciting game may be played on them. [Illustration: _IROHA_ AND ODE-CARDS.]